Deals of Desire

Walmart’s goal for Black Friday 2024 was to “ritualize deal shopping.” Basically, get people to shop Walmart.com – and keep coming back – for six weeks straight. But we’d need to give people a reason to keep tuning in over an extended period of time.

So we developed Deals of Desire – an episodic “advertainment” series spanning all kinds of dramatic genres – to showcase Walmart’s dramatically good deals.

We ending up breaking Walmart Black Friday records, bringing in 5% higher sales than previous records and becoming the #1 most searched retailer for Black Friday.

Talent from every subgenre starred alongside new Walmart deals & drove messaging for all the big shopping dates.
We lifted :30s, :60s, and :15s for traditional placements out of 11 long-form episodes which ran online, along with hundreds of social assets.

Official Trailer & ‘Series’ Promo

To drive awareness for the deal events, we promoted Deals of Desire like a true network show.

The Making Of: Deals of Desire

Before the show (and the deals) launched, we seeded the series in a mockumentary-style “behind the scenes” with TikTok’s funniest rising star, Jake Shane. 

A Soapy Start 🫧

Our first genre went live with the first wave of deals on November 11, and starred everyone’s favorite former soap star, Lisa Rinna.

📱 Behind-the-scenes content with Jake dropped during every ‘genre’, continuing the drama on social.

And to keep viewers tuned in, crossover characters went from one genre into the next…

Vampire Vibes🩸

After the first deals event ended Nov. 17, we kept the hype going for the next big drop on Nov. 25… with all new deals, stars, and dramatic episodes.

🪭 A Historical Affair

Our historical episodes launched mid-month to announce the second deal event dates, with ‘Hamilton’ heartthrob star Anthony Ramos.

🧨 Welcome To Deals Ranch

When the second wave of Black Friday Deals went live, so did our episodes with Walton Goggins as our two-timin’ villain.

A Big Football Finish 🏈

Our lawyers told us we legally couldn’t call this Black Friday Night Lights, so I didn’t, and I won’t.
But who doesn’t want to see Chad Michael Murray and Taye Diggs battle it out in the locker room?

💻 And our series finale drove viewers from shopping Black Friday to shopping Cyber Monday.

Overall Results

The campaign broke Walmart Black Friday records, earning 5% higher sales than previous records, and…

✔️ #1 most searched retailer for Black Friday, with 49% search increase for “Walmart deals”
✔️ 31% increase in digital traffic for Cyber Monday
✔️ 5x higher social engagement than our benchmarks
✔️ Helped give Walmart Marketplace its highest sales day ever & set a conversion rate record
✔️ More than 5 billion total impressions

Credits

CCOs: Nikki Baker, Leslie Shaffer
ECD: Travis Parr
CDs: Abby Gross, Sara Cummings, Danny Weilandt
Creatives: Kayla Hall, Grace Geary, Lexey Watson, Reilly Harmer, Leah Jarem,
Meredith Niles, Alisha Branch, Pete Prendergast, Henry Coffey, Rachel Williams
EP: Peter McCann
Producer: Trevor Hembling
PM: AJ Tomiak

Production Company: Radical Media
Directors: Marc Webb (Genre), Paul Briganti (The Making Of)
DPs: Scott Cunningham (Genre), Cristina Dunlap (The Making Of)
Line Producers: Dave Bernstein (Genre), Peter Bunstein (Making Of)

Editorial Company: Union Editorial NY
Editors: Merritt Duff, Karen Kourtessis, Vinnie Hobbs, Mackenzie Mauro, Ryan Stacom, Jean Taylor
Assistant Editors: Artemis Tapliga, Nico Gilmore
Managing Director: Caryn Maclean
Executive Producer: Melissa Lubin
Head of Production: Lily Hartmann

Stills Photographer: Tina Rowden
Talent Negotiation: Creative License